30 THE HABITS OF THE SALMON. 



during the summer. There are many good fishing 

 stations on all such rivers and estuaries, where no fish 

 can be caught earlier than the ist of May, while just 

 opposite such stations, the north side, makes a 

 successfiil spring fishing. It may be asked here, 

 when so many salmon rivers run into the tideway of 

 this Kyle, What is the reason that the Shin is the only 

 river that produces early salmon ? The reason is that 

 which has been explained before, ' The high tem- 

 perature of the Shin in winter.' That is the season 

 in which the ova are embedded in the gravel in the 

 river, and the hatching of the young fish is more 

 hastened here than in other rivers of a very low 

 temperature. The same cause affects the fish in the 

 same proportion in all their upward stages, and as all 

 these rivers have their peculiar race of fish, which 

 return to the river in which they have been bred, it 

 entirely accounts for the Shin producing early salmon, 

 and the other rivers not. This river issues from 

 Loch Shin at Lairg, and its whole course, with its 

 windings, is only between six and seven rhiles long. 



